


King of Monsters

by savanting



Category: Bleach
Genre: Beauty and the Beast Elements, F/M, Implied Cannibalism, Non-Canon Relationship, Not Canon Compliant, Series of ficlets, Snow White Elements, aizen gets to be the wicked puppeteer in a would-be fairy tale, beastkind instead of arrancar, different backstory, no real plot but a series of passion plays, potential ooc material
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25427479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savanting/pseuds/savanting
Summary: Once, he was nameless. Once, he was nothing more than a beast. Now - well, he's still a beast, and he has so much more to learn - especially once he meets her, the girl whose heart he wants to taste.(Set to be a short series fic inspired by the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast")
Relationships: Ulquiorra Cifer/Inoue Orihime
Kudos: 10





	King of Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo and Shonen Jump. Ulquiorra may not have been a fleshed-out character in canon, but he holds a special place in my heart as a grimdark creation who had SO MUCH POTENTIAL - especially with Orihime. This is my exploration of that. Enjoy!

In the beginning, there were screams. Such loud screams that he wanted to shatter his skull to keep from hearing them. Each one was a prolonged noise that left his head thrumming with energy, sparking with possibility, even though he knew each sound belonged to something that lived and breathed, something that could _hurt_.

Maybe that was the start of it, his apathy to pain whether it was his own or others’. All the other beasts like him migrated over the stark white expanse, the landscape full of teeth and claws and wings and limbs. Just because he did not attack like they did, in groups, did not mean he wasn’t like them in essence.

He could not roar or screech as the other beasts did, but that did not stop him from tearing apart whatever meat he could find to feed himself. He too had wings and claws. He too was more beast, more _creature_ , than he was anything else. And, though he was bothered by the noise, he did nothing to stop it. Why should he? What could he gain by it? Even though he had no speech or language yet for what he was feeling, he still had a sense that something was wrong with what they did to survive. Not every being lived as they did, fighting each other for dominance and tearing each other apart and feasting on the remnants of other beasts.

If she had seen him then, she would have called him a monster, and she would have been right.

*

Awareness came in slow bursts, but it never came all at once. It was a progression that seemed to have no end. But nothing beat the moment when he tore off the mask that had smothered him since he had first come to the realization that it was there. He had bashed his head against a spire again and again and again until the mask cracked and he could tug off piece by piece so that he could _breathe_.

Breathing. It was not something he had ever quite needed before -- or had he? Time was strange in this world that existed between worlds. Only the doomed ever came here. And, because he was here, that must have meant he was doomed too.

The aftermath of his self-carnage left him scrabbling his claws over his flesh. He felt so very vulnerable, so open to attack, that he created a nest away from the other beasts. They did not care: they were too busy scrabbling for supremacy in this wasteland.

It was only when the man came and upset their world that he learned just what he was.

*

The man would have blended into the landscape if the beasts had not had such keen, sharp eyesight. But the only reason the beasts did not attack was that the man crackled with an energy that beastkind did not quite have. Still, he had not come for the hoard of senseless creatures. He had come for one of them specifically.

The man gave him a name: _Ulquiorra_. It left a bitter taste on his tongue, like something disintegrated to ash. But with a name, he was no longer just _beast_ or _creature_. He was _something_ , he just did not know what.

Why did he follow the man? Well, it was easier than fighting him. Because Ulquiorra - a name, he still could not believe it - knew there would have been no winning against the man. He was somehow worse, more dangerous, than any of the beasts they were leaving behind. The man’s face may have been serene, but his presence alone spoke to something more primal than anything Ulquiorra had known before, even with having known only beastkind.

It was a relief to leave, if only to get away from the cacophony of noise that spoke of nothing but death and destruction.

*

Time - that was something new to him. The first time he saw a clock, he was fascinated in spite of himself. So much fascinated him in the new world he inhabited. He wore clothes that were as white as the landscape he had left behind. There was so much to learn, so much to take apart and dissect, so different from his old world that had been nothing but a wasteland.

The man had a name too: Aizen. It was a sharp name on Ulquiorra’s tongue, and he mouthed it once, twice, before saying it aloud. Aizen sat down with him and taught him about history, language, food, even the nature of the word _humanity_ and all it meant. All of the information was overwhelming, but Ulquiorra found himself hungering for more knowledge, for something of what _truth_ meant.

The anatomy of a human heart was something that fascinated him to no end. Even though a heart looked like nothing but meat to Ulquiorra, he learned that the humans also used the word _heart_ to mean things like _emotion_ , _feeling_ , and even - most elusive of all - _love_. These words meant nothing to him, but still he traced the vibrant arteries and veins in the anatomical drawings. He wondered what it would be like to tear a human heart from its vessel and simply feast on it. It was a thought from the old world, from an old life, but he figured a heart would be much more satisfying than beastkind meat had ever been.

Little did he know that eating a human heart was the last thing he would want to do when he actually met a real, live human. No, he would be too taken by the features - hair that fell like swaths of silk, eyes that could see through whatever lies he told, a body that spoke to other hungers he would soon learn. _Human_ was still an abstract to him, a learning principle, a concept with no experiment behind it.

If he had met her then, he surely would have torn her heart out and had no qualm about eating it as the life died from her eyes. But these were still his early days, and he had so much more to experience.

Ulquiorra may not have had his own heart, but in time he would learn that was more deficit than blessing.

She would teach him so many things, but their story still hadn’t begun.

He had to be sent out to kill her first.


End file.
